Category: Budget

Signs of the Apocalypse, Steny Hoyer Showing Guts Edition

No Comments

You got that right, Steny fracking Hoyer is finding a damn backbone:

Steny Hoyer, the number two in the House Dem leadership, told Democrats at a caucus meeting this morning that they would get to vote this year on just extending the Bush tax cuts for the middle class, a senior Dem aide tells me, signaling support for a confrontational move towards the GOP that liberals have been pushing.

Asked if Democrats would definitely get a chance to hold this vote, the senior aide responded: “Definitely.”

Hoyer’s declaration comes as Democrats have been debating the way forward on the Bush tax cuts, and another aide tells me that “more than half” of the Dem caucus supports this course of action.

I approve, but I wonder just who the hell had Steny’s testicles, and why they decided to give it back to him.

Raising taxes on people making more than a ¼ of a million dollars a year is excellent policy, and excellent politics, so it surprises me that Democrats are even thinking about doing this.

Doubtless, they will find a way to screw this up, and I’m sure that Heath Shuler will be leading the way, but I’m still getting a heavy duty umbrella, just in case it starts to rain frogs.

Oop Ack! This is an Insult to Cat Food!

1 Comment

Yeah, this gives me hairballs too

So, now that the election is over, the two co-chairmen of Barack Obama’s catfood* deficit reduction commission, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, have released the plan that they came up with together.

On their own.

Without consulting with anyone else on the commission.

Which needs to get affirmative votes from 14 of the 18 members to actually issue a report.

It makes it pretty clear that these folks are idiots.

Remember now, that this commission was given one charge, to reduce the deficit in the long term, so let’s see what they came up with:

  • Cutting social security benefits, even though they themselves have said that this will not count against the deficit, because it has its own trust fund, and because they would be laughed out of town if they did.
    • They cut this by means testing social security, changing the way that the benefits base is figured from average wage to CPI, which will cut benefits by over 50% over the next to years, and by raising the retirement age, which, as Paul Krugman notes, “Oh, and they’re talking about raising the retirement age, because people live longer — except that the people who really depend on Social Security, those in the bottom half of the distribution, aren’t living much longer. So you’re going to tell janitors to work until they’re 70 because lawyers are living longer than ever.“
  • Limiting government revenues to 21% of GDP.
  • Cutting taxes, with the top tax rate dropping to 23%.(!).
  • Torte reform.

Note that these are clearly not part of the committee’s charge, which was to reduce the deficit, but they decided to go wingnut to start off.

Additionally, in areas where they are acting within the scope of their committee they want to:

  • Cut military spending.
  • Cut many tax deductions, including the home mortgage interest deduction (not gonna happen).
  • Charge co-pays for veterans to get services from the VA.
  • Magically making healthcard costs increase by no more than 1% more than GDP.

No wonder that (still) Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls it, “simply unacceptable.”

Felix Salmon is scathing about the plan, and shows just how silly it is:

Meanwhile, some of the small savings have to be seen to be believed. The deficit commission, charged with coming up with a bold plan to bring the nation’s finances into order, really does propose:

  • Increasing the amount of time spent on instant messenger, to reduce travel costs;
  • “Reduce copying use by putting the default option on copiers to double-sided”;
  • Merging the Commerce Department with the Small Business Administration;
  • Charging a fee to Smithsonian visitors.
  • Etc.

Really, they are suggesting that we have the Smithsonian charge admission, and changing copiers to copy both sides of a sheet of paper by default.

This was foreseeable. Both Bowles and Simpson have been advocating privatizing Social Security for years, and Bowles almost had a deal cut with Gingrich in the 1990s to do so.

Not surprising, BTW, since Bowles is an investment bankers, and those folks have been salivating for decades about the possibility of getting fees for (mis)managing all that money.

This is not a deficit reduction plan. This is a slash fanfic wet-dream from the denizens of some warped right wing think tank.

I would note that the way is playing in the press will be disastrous for the Democrats, because it’s all, “Obama Commission proposes cutting Social Security” (or the mortgage deduction, or veterans’ benefits, etc.), and that was clear even before wankers Bowles and Simpson were appointed.

It was intended to be yet another excuse for Obama to preen about how he was post-partisan and reasonable he is, and once again, what emerged from this bit of narcissism is cataclysmic blow back, both in terms of the policy and the politics.

<Facepalm>

*In the interest of health, I would suggest that people eat dog food, and not cat food. Cats because they are one of the few true carnivores, do not need the complex carbohydrates and fats that people, and dogs do. As such, dog food is better for you than cat food because it provides carbs and essential fatty acids. A dog can go blind if it is fed on cat food, but a cat lives just fine on dog food. The phenomenon is known as rabbit starvation.

Finally, Someone In the Obama Administration With Guts

No Comments

Unfortunately, it’s just Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood:

The Obama administration is urging Wisconsin’s incoming Republican governor, Scott Walker, to reconsider his opposition to high-speed rail in his state and threatened to rescind $810 million in federal stimulus grants for the project if the venture is killed.

In a letter (pdf) to Walker yesterday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood discussed what he called a “difference of opinion about the value of a Midwest high-speed rail network” between the Obama administration and the incoming governor, emphasizing economic benefits that high-speed rail could bring to the region.

Walker, who is currently the county executive of Milwaukee County, campaigned heavily against a proposed high-speed line to link Milwaukee and Madison that would eventually be part of a Midwest network. Decrying the project as a waste of tax dollars, he has called for the cash to be redistributed to highway and bridge repairs in his state.

But LaHood said the stimulus grants must be spent on rail projects.

Additionally, LaHood is demanding $271 million back from New Jersey Transit for Governor Christie’s cancellation of the rail tunnel under the Hudson, and there are indications that the Feds will be demanding money back from Ohio when the new Republican governor there cancels their rail program.

Even more amusing is that Illinois is already applying for the money that the ‘Phant governors don’t want.

Good for Secretary LaHood, but I expect Obama to overrule him and give the money to Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Jersey anyway, because he wants these loony tunes to like him.

It is interesting that the only one in Obama’s administration to do the right thing because it is the right thing is a Republican.

We Know Who is Going to Win This War

2 Comments

Killing each Taliban soldier costs $50 Million; Killing each NATO soldier costs $50 Thousand:

Kabul Press, on September 30, 2010, published an article by this author detailing the best estimate of Taliban killed per year (2,000) divided by a portion of the direct costs that the Pentagon is spending each year in Afghanistan ($100 billion). The resulting statistic suggests that it costs $50 million to kill each Taliban soldier. This number is very conservative. If all NATO and American costs (direct and indirect) were included, the analysis would reveal that it actually costs about $150 million.

The present article examines spending from the Taliban side in order to comparatively determine what it costs to kill each NATO soldier. The Brookings Institution is the consulting firm with the best political access to the Obama Administration and the U.S. State Department. In September 2009, it published a report on Taliban annual revenue, based in part on data gathered by the Congressional Research Service. Brookings estimated Taliban annual income at between $140 and $200 million. The Taliban have already inflicted over 600 deaths on NATO soldiers and more than twice that number of fatalities on Afghan army and police personnel. By the end of the year, total Coalition deaths are expected to reach 3,000. The math is unfortunately easy. Assuming Taliban revenue of $150 million divided by 3,000 = $50,000 to kill a NATO, American or Afghan soldier.

The military says that this is the product of an over simplified analysis, which is true, but the trend reflected here is correct, and we are not winning “hearts and minds” and cannot win “hearts and minds” because the populace opposes occupying forces, and our man in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai is so indescribably incompetent and corrupt.

Oh For F%$#’s Sake, Pick a F%$#ing Fight!

No Comments

In the face of what are likely to be very large legislative losses tomorrow, the Obama administration is busy trying to find more ways to capitulate to Republicans in the vain hope that they will be nice:

With Republicans poised to gain ground in Tuesday’s elections, the White House is losing hope that Congress will approve its plan to raise taxes on the nation’s wealthiest families and is increasingly focusing on a new strategy that would preserve tax breaks for both the wealthy and the middle class.

According to people familiar with talks at the White House and among senior Democrats on Capitol Hill, breaking apart the Bush administration tax cuts is now being discussed as a more realistic goal. That strategy calls for permanent extension of cuts that benefit families earning less than $250,000 a year, and temporary extension of cuts on income above that amount.

The move would “decouple” the two sets of provisions, Democrats said, and focus the debate when tax cuts for the rich expired next year or the year after. Republicans would be forced to defend carve-outs for a tiny minority populated by millionaires, an unpopular position that would be difficult to advance without the cover of a broad-based tax cut for everyone, aides in both parties said.

“The concept of ‘decoupling’ is a hot topic right now,” said one senior Democratic aide.

And the Republicans will demand permanent tax cuts for the rich pigs, including the near total elimination of the inheritance tax, unless I miss my guess.

How many f%$#ing times do you have to lead with a compromise, and get a “no” before you realize that you cannot negotiate with the barbarians at the gate?

You want to pick a fight because you can, and because raising taxes on people making more than $¼ million a year is both good politics and good policy.

It allows you to set the agenda, choose the time and place of conflict, and it mobilizes your base.

This, “Can’t we all just get along/Kumbayah” crap has ill served the Obama administration, the Democratic Party, and the whole country.

The Military Side of the UK Budget Cuts

No Comments

It’s pretty grim:

  • Scrapping the existing carriers.
  • Scrapping the Harrier fleet.
  • Replacing the 138 F-35B STOVL with somewhere around 50 of the F-35C carrier variant.
  • The two carriers will be built, but one will not be fitted with catapults or arrestor gear, and so will never carry airplanes.
  • Scrapping the nearly new Sentinel surveillance aircraft as soon as they are back from Afghanistan.
  • Reduce MoD civilian staffing by 25,000 and military staffing by 17,000.
  • Canceling the late and over budget Nimprod MRA4.
  • Delaying a new SSBN.
  • Significant cuts to the surface fleet.
  • Speeding up the return of troops based in Germany

From a pure perspective of governance, you have to give the Tories props: When they said they would cut the budget, they applied this to the Ministry of Defence as well, which is, at least consistent.

Realistically, these cuts mean that, outside of low intensity UN peacekeeping missions, the British will be incapable of engaging in an operation independently of the US, but that has been the political reality since Suez in 1957 anyway.

The British Attempt at Slow Seppuku

No Comments

The British are engaging in truly draconian spending cuts in the face of a recession to the tune of £156 billion (roughly 20% of the current budget) and 490,000 employees.

By way of perspective, the UK Budget in 2-7-2008 was about £520 billion, and the job losses would be equivalent to the loss of over 2½ million jobs in the US, and that is just the direct losses, when one considers the follow on effects, essentially the jobs that are held by people who provide goods and services to these public employees, are likely to be even larger.

If one assumes that the total job losses will be roughly double the civil service cuts, and this is a conservative estimate, with the UK’s workforce size of roughly 30 million, we would see at least a 3% increase in unemployment.

On the bright side, unlike their fellow wingnuts on this side of the Atlantic, they are also applying the cuts to their Defen(c)se establishment as well (more in a later post).

I think that Paul Krugman has a wonderful bit of snark on this, where he calls the people who will be hurt by this British Fashion Victims:

In the spring of 2010, fiscal austerity became fashionable. I use the term advisedly: the sudden consensus among Very Serious People that everyone must balance budgets now now now wasn’t based on any kind of careful analysis. It was more like a fad, something everyone professed to believe because that was what the in-crowd was saying.

And it’s a fad that has been fading lately, as evidence has accumulated that the lessons of the past remain relevant, that trying to balance budgets in the face of high unemployment and falling inflation is still a really bad idea. Most notably, the confidence fairy has been exposed as a myth. There have been widespread claims that deficit-cutting actually reduces unemployment because it reassures consumers and businesses; but multiple studies of historical record, including one by the International Monetary Fund, have shown that this claim has no basis in reality.

No widespread fad ever passes, however, without leaving some fashion victims in its wake. In this case, the victims are the people of Britain, who have the misfortune to be ruled by a government that took office at the height of the austerity fad and won’t admit that it was wrong.

…………

It would be funny if it were not tragic.

Here is Some Sanity in Defense Procurement

No Comments

The successor to the over-ambitious Future Combat Systems Manned Ground Vehicle (FCS-MGV)* the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) has now dropped many of the technologies intended for the FCS-MGV, because, even now, 2 years after the cancellation of the program, the programs are still insufficiently mature to be deployed on a combat system:

In an effort to make use of the billions of dollars it invested in the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, the U.S. Army may have required too many immature technologies in its first Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) Request for Proposals, according to the Army’s vice chief.

“We wanted to look and ensure that we made use of the investment in FCS and that we had the ability to use those technologies,” Gen. Peter Chiarelli told reporters at a Sept. 22 lunch in Washington.

However, if you want a vehicle in seven years, “you can’t be reaching deep for technologies right now,” he said.

………

According to Chiarelli, FCS was canceled in a way so that the Army could still make use of the research and development work done under the program.

“We wanted to ensure that those technologies that we worked so hard to develop could be integrated in to a new ground combat vehicle,” he said.

However, “there were a lot of those technologies that aren’t at a technology readiness level today where we could integrate them in seven years.”

(emphasis mine)

It boggles the mind that the technologies, “aren’t at a technology readiness level,” when the original intent was to begin fielding the FCS in 2008.

So the technologies in question won’t be ready 9 years after they were supposed to be fielded.

Our defense procurement system is seriously broken.

*Full disclosure, I worked on the Future Recovery and Maintenance Vehicle, FRMV, “wrecker” variant of the FCS-MGV† from 2003-2006 at United Defense (later BAE Systems after the Carlyle Group sold me to buy Dunkin Donuts).
†Future Combat Systems-Manned Ground Vehicle. These are the ones that are the tanks and APCs. As opposed to the various unnmanned vehicles, networking technologies, etc. that form the full FCS along with the MGVs.‡
‡Yes, I have worked everywhere. Maybe I can’t hold down a job, but more likely this has been my role as “technical hit man”, where you are parachuted in to take care of a specific need.

Cowardly Conservadems Cause Tax Cut Catastrophe

No Comments

What Cee Lo Green Said (NSFW)

So, put a fork in it, the Democrats won’t be voting on middle class tax cuts, because the conservadems are unwilling to support the idea:

Obama wanted a vote on his proposed extension of some of the tax cuts before lawmakers returned to the campaign trail for the November 2 elections, in part to reinforce Democratic support for pocketbook issues.

Democratic strategists have been divided over whether it’s politically beneficial to push for a vote on the tax cuts now, citing their candidates from conservative states in tough re-election battles who would have to defend the resulting increase in the tax rate on wealthy Americans to previous levels.

Of course, voting on this would have put the Republicans on the defensive, by forcing them to vote against middle class tax cuts, the the conservadem/Blue Dog types are so terrified of Republicans that they are shooting themselves in the foot.

Bad policy and bad politics.

Truth be told, I’m for letting it all expire, and then increasing taxes on the very rich (94% sounds good), but still it is remarkably how Dems can pull defeat from the jaws of victory.

Take it away Cee Lo.

This Isn’t Just Because Heath Shuler has Always Been an Over Paid Under-Performing Punk*

No Comments

But I really want every seat lost by the Dems this election cycle to come from the Blue Dog Democrats.

The Blue Dogs and other conservative are trying to prevent a vote on extending the tax breaks for people making less than $¼ million a year because they pants wetting cowards, and are afraid that Republicans will say something bad about them, and are busy on their knees to their wealthy donors.

They want their tax cuts for the rich, even though it is ruinously bad policy, and even worse politics, because they are hopeless wimps.

*He was a first round draft pick for the Washington Redskins, and turned out to be, according to ESPN, the the 4th biggest NFL Draft bust of all time, as well as being the whip for the Blue Dog Caucus in the House of Representations.

Senate Appropriations Committee Pulls F136 Alternate Engine Funding

No Comments

In addition to zeroing out the alternate engine, they also cut 10 production aircraft from the FY 2011 for failure of the program to execute per schedule.

This implies to me that neither cut could have gone through on its own, but together, both those who have concerns about the JSF, and those who don’t want the engine got enough of what they wanted to support each other.

Meanwhile GE/RR is ramping up efforts to reverse this decision, noting, among other things, that the budget numbers that the Pentagon is putting forward on the F136 engine are sketchy at best.

H/t ELP Defens(c)e Blog

Boehner Blinks

No Comments

After threatening to take down any tax proposal that did not keep the tax breaks for the Leona “Only the little people pay taxes” Helmsley rich folk, David “Nicotine Stained Face” Boehner has agreed to support tax cuts for the remaining 98% of us.

I think that this is really a change in tactics: He knows that he cannot stop the tax cuts from expiring in the House, and that there is a realistic chance of taking the house, so he will go with the electoral politics that show that over ⅔ of voters support letting the “rich bitch” tax cuts expire, so he will let the Senate, where the chances of a Republican take over are smaller, filibuster this to death.

My response to both of them would be to remind them that the inheritance tax goes way up next year if nothing is done, and if something reasonable does not get through the Congress, then there all the taxes come back full force, but of course, I’m not being all hopey-changey and attempting bipartisanship.

Personally, I’d take the top rate, cutting at somewhere north of 10 million a year, back to around 94%, but then again, I’m just a DFH.*

*Dirty F%$#ing Hippy.

Obama Calls for Weak Tea, and Cedes Ground to the Right Wing

2 Comments

So now, instead of trying for something that works to reduce unemployment, Obama is calling for a modest public works program, $50 Billion over 6 years, significantly less than what we are flushing down the toilet on the unnecessary F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.*

What’s more, once again, he throws a bargaining chip to the Republicans, who have shown their unwillingness to negotiate in good faith, by also proposing that the R&D tax credit be extended and made permanent.

Once again, when trying to put forward even the most modest proposal, he kneecaps himself by taking what could have been used as a lever to derive support, and handing it to his enemies so that they can use it as a cudgel against him.

Week tea, constructed to make it even weaker, once again.

*This is not meant to be a commentary on the capabilities of the F-35, simply a statement that these capabilities are simply not necessary in current of foreseeable future conflicts, and the same goes for the F-22, so please don’t make this a Raptor/Lightning II pissing contest.

Israeli MoD Approves JSF Buy

No Comments

Israel’s Ministry of Defense has approved a purchase of 20 F-35 fighters, though the report of a price of “only” $96 million a copy, is clearly a blivit,* as evidenced by this report of that 20 JSFs will cost about $2.75 billion, which gives a price of $137.5 million each, which is closer, but probably still less than, the cost of the aircraft.

In any case, while the MoD has approved, there is significant resistance from the full cabinet, with Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz expressing significant concerns about Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s decision.

It’s clear that both Lockheed Martin and the DoD were desperate to get this sale, which explains why Israel Aerospace Industries got a contract to build 800 wingsets for the stealthy fighter, which comes close to Israel being paid to take the plane.

They want a stamp of approval from a country that is not already a partner in the F-35 consortium, and Israel gives them more market credibility than almost any other non NATO nation.

*10 pounds of sh%$ in a 5 pound bag.

Remember That Alan Simpson Was Always Thus, and Obama Picked Him

No Comments

So, a few weeks back, Anal Alan Simpson, the co-chair of Barack Obama’s so called “Cat Food Commission,” ostensibly charged with reducing the deficit, but in reality given a mandate to trim Social Security, hence leaving seniors surviving on cat food,* was referring to recipients of the pension program as “Lesser People,” in society.

That was pretty offensive, but Barack Obama knows his way around Washington, and he knows who and what Alan Simpson is, and so I figured that he selected him to co-chair the committee because he wants to cut Social Security.

Today however, I look back at that truly repugnant statement by former Senator Simpson as a high water mark on his civility, because in an email exchange with the president of the Older Woman’s League in which he ridiculed her organization and its membership, and described Social Security as a, “Milk Cow with 310 Million Tits.”

By this, he means that he thinks that every single American who might be eligible for the program is in his mind a moocher.

Of course, we now see the non-apology apology:

I can see that my remarks have caused you anguish, and that was not my intention. I certainly did not intend to diminish your hard work for the Older Women’s League. I know you care deeply about strengthening Social Security, and so do I, just as deeply. I remember your testimony at our public hearing in June about the importance of retirement security for women. Over the last 40 years, I have had my size 15 feet in my mouth a time or two. To quote my old friend and colleague, Senator Lloyd Bentsen, when I make a mistake, “It’s a doozy!”

You see, it’s not his fault, it’s her fault for being offended, and Simpson is just a good old boy who sometimes misspeaks.

You now have a number of advocacy groups calling for his resignation, saying, with a lot of justification, that this shows that Simpson has already pre-decided this matter, while the AARP has indirectly done so as well:

The vast majority of the 310 million Americans he insulted – particularly 156 million women and younger Americans for whom the traditional pension will be a relic of history – don’t have access to the type of traditional pension retirement security that Sen. Simpson has from his decades in Congress. Perhaps that’s why his comments demonstrate a woeful disconnect from or disinterest in the challenges facing many American families for whom Social Security is literally a lifeline.

“Sen. Simpson’s most recent departure from reality would be easy to dismiss if not for his position co-leading a Presidential commission that will likely recommend changes to Social Security. Sen. Simpson’s remarks not only cross the line of good judgment, but they undermine the serious work of the commission and give us little confidence the commission can fairly look at important programs such as Social Security.”

I am not going to join into any dead pool on Simpson. He’s going to stay on the board, because Barack Obama wants him on the board, and given his long history on the social safety net, the only reason that Barack Obama wanted him is because he wants to gut the program.

Expect the deficit commission to propose a few token taxes, no defense cuts, and draconian cuts to programs that help the needy, because that’s how the White House rolls.

*In the interest of health, I would suggest that people eat dog food, and not cat food. Cats because they are one of the few true carnivores, do not need the complex carbohydrates and fats that people, and dogs do. As such, dog food is better for you than cat food because it provides carbs and essential fatty acids. A dog can go blind if it is fed on cat food, but a cat lives just fine on dog food. The phenomenon is known as rabbit starvation.

An Interesting Point on Moves to Reduce the Size of the General Officer Corps

No Comments
Click for full size


It costs a lot, and make you lose wars

One of the areas where SecDef Gates is looking to reduce costs is reducing the level of general officers (general and admirals).

An interesting sideline to this is that history shows that the more officers, particularly general officers, that you have, the worse that your military performs:

Militaries with proportionately large numbers of field [major through colonel] and general grade officers have historically proven to be losers, not winners, in war. At its current levels, the U.S. military is among the worst.

Of course, the voice of officialdom, The Washington Post, notes that an officer’s billet only costs about a ¼ million dollars a year, noting that, “Terminating a single general’s billet might save about $200,000 a year in salary and benefits, barely a rounding error in the Pentagon’s base budget this year of $535 billion.”

This is, rather unsurprisingly, about as completely untrue as one can be without actually making a verifiable lie.

When someone becomes a general, he doesn’t spend his days playing golf waiting for a war, they get a command somewhere.

If there isn’t a command somewhere, then one is created, or the supervision of a task is upgraded from a field officer to a general officer, and the office, staff and budget are increased accordingly.

Once the office has a general officer in charge, there is a bureaucratic imperative for it to become “essential” in some way or another, so it will find things to do, and doing those things, whether needed or not, will cost money.

I would agree to cuts, but I would also suggest repealing the provision of the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act of 1980, aka “Up or Out”, which make promotions a requirement for continued service.

It creates an incentive for rank inflation, what Robert Gates calls “brass creep” in assigning roles in the services.

As to why these additional costs have not been addressed in their article, my guess is that the Post editorial board thinks that something would be missing from Sally Quinn’s cocktail parties if there were not a few generals in uniform there.

After Over a Decade of Starving Their Force to Make Room for F-22s and F-35s………

No Comments

The USAF is looking at buying new build F-16s and F-15s to fill the gap:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a new report today that for the first time reveals how US Air Force plans to deal with a fighter shortfall that is expected to reach 200 jets by 2025.

The GAO report summarizes two mandatory reports the USAF delivered in March to Congress. There are four options:

1. Extending the service life of and modernizing about 300 F-16 aircraft
2. Increasing annual F-35 procurement above 80 aircraft per year
3. Procuring new upgraded variants of legacy aircraft such as the F-16 and F-15
4. A combination of options 2 and 3

The fact that the USAF has even considered resuming F-16 and F-15 orders could be very significant. Two decades of USAF leaders have consistently upheld the all-stealth rule for combat aircraft.

Significant is an understatement.

The USAF has been doing its level best to create a fighter shortfall for the past 15 years or so in order to force a move to an all-stealth force.

The fact that the situation has gotten so dire that the USAF is considering buying some Eagles or Vipers is a big deal.

It indicates that the budget pictures on the F-35 are even grimmer than previously understood.

How to Save the US Post Office

No Comments

It turns out that the USPS makes much of its money from junk mail, and
Zac Bissonnette has a brilliant way to use this to make the big banks bankroll the Post Office, which is a good way to support Saturday service, and its flat rate for anywhere in the country:

Almost daily, I receive at least one pre-approved credit card offer from a big national bank that received bailout money from U.S. taxpayers. I hate big banks, and I hate bailouts, and I really hate it when my bailout money is used to send me junk mail I didn’t ask for and don’t want.

………

Instead, a grassroots bailout — this time, of the post office. This time, paid for by the bailed-out banks. We can do it. Here’s how: From now on, don’t just throw out those credit card offers. Instead, put the paperwork in the “postage will be paid by addressee” envelope (first removing anything with your name on it) and drop it back in the mailbox. You’ve just transferred the cost of mailing that letter from the not-so-needy Chase/Citi/Bank of America to the oh-so-needy USPS. Who needs Robin Hood when we have postage-paid envelopes?

The U.S. has 307 million people. If each person received an average of just one credit card offer a month (most adults get more than that, while children get none) and mailed it back to the bank without a signed application, at a cost to the bank of 44 cents postage, U.S. consumers could transfer $135 million a month from the banks to the Postal Service.

Truth be told, the net for the USPS is less than that, but it’s probably at least a dime, since much of what we pay is for maintaining the the postal infrastructure.

I’m not suggesting that you use it to send a brick, that would be abusive, but it is a good way to generate some additional revenue for your Postal Service.

It also has the advantage of raising the cost to junk mailers to sending you this crap, which might make them send you less crap.

The Cat Food Commission* is At It Again

No Comments

Well, we already know that the Republicans on Obama’s “Deficit Reduction Commission” are marching lock-step against any meaningful tax increases, and now we know that when push comes to shove, they will cut military pay and benefits over any sort of sanity in weapons systems procurement:

A source familiar with the proceedings of the working group on discretionary spending tells TPM that some commissioners, including one military contractor, would prefer to save money by freezing military pay and scaling back benefits, rather than by eliminating waste in defense contracting.

……

According to the source, [Honeywell CEO David] Cote and other members, including the commission’s co-chair Alan Simpson, are focusing instead on “freezing military pay, making military people pay for their health care.”

Because that waste is what this “military contractor” calls his “annual bonus.”

It’s all about someone else taking the hit on this.

On the brighter side, this makes any adoption of any proposals from Cat Food Commission* that much less likely to be adopted, because this is a completely clueless move.

I would also note that the uniformed military personnel levels are near a post WWII low, so the reason that the budget is exploding is not that we have 8 million active duty servicemen.

One wonders though, who is leaking all of this to Brian Beutler, and why are they doing so?

*In the interest of health, I would suggest that people eat dog food, and not cat food. Cats because they are one of the few true carnivores, do not need the complex carbohydrates and fats that people, and dogs do. As such, dog food is better for you than cat food because it provides carbs and essential fatty acids. A dog can go blind if it is fed on cat food, but a cat lives just fine on dog food. The phenomenon is known as rabbit starvation.

Israel’s Iron Dome Completes Testing

No Comments
Click for full size


Launcher

Israel has completed tests on its Iron Dome defense system, successfully intercepting rockets and mortar targets:

Iron Dome is developed and produced by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. During the final testS in Southern Israel, Iron Dome successfully engaged salvos of live rockets and mortar shells. With participation of teams from the IAF Iron Dome air defense battalion, the system repeatedly engaged rocket salvos and mortar shells in increasingly complex scenarios.

The system demonstrated effective detection and intercept of targets above and below cloud cover, while maintaining “keep-out zones” for integration with air traffic over the protected area. Iron Dome detected, tracked and selectively engaged only those targets presenting a threat to the area being protected. This feature – unique to the Israeli active defense system – is attributed to the multimode radar (MMR) and battle management and weapon control (BMC) system developed specially for the Iron Dome.

Obviously the first two locations for deployment would be on the Gaza border, near Sderot, and the Lebanese border.

Then again, it may not be deployed, because it is so damn expensive:

Yet, the IDF is reluctant to buy it, grumbling over the cost of each Iron Dome intercept, estimated at nearly $50,000, compared to the estimated $500 cost of a Palestinian rocket. Press reports put Iron Dome development costs at $250 million, with each battery costing about $50 million.

Truth be told, I think that the number for a Katyusha or Kassam is a bit high, and the mortar round is probably under %59.

There are also rumors that the system was actually developed for export to Singapore, with defense to be conducted by installations of land based Phalanx Gatling guns. (See also here for more on export customers, as well as a potential co-installation with Spike-NLOS SSMs, which I assume are for counter-battery fire)

Once again, we have missile defense running into a very simple brick wall: It’s something on the order of 100 times more expensive than the threat it is intercepting.